Clogging in constricted suspension flows

Abstract

The flow of a charged-stabilized suspension through a single constricted channel is studied experimentally by tracking the particles individually. Surprisingly, the behavior is found to be qualitatively similar to that of inertial dry granular systems: For small values of the neck-to-particle size ratio (D/d<3), clogs form randomly as arches of particle span the constriction. The statistics of the clogging events are Poissonian as reported for granular systems and agree, for moderate particle volume fraction ($\varphi \approx 20\%$), with a simple stochastic model for the number of particles at the neck. For larger neck sizes (D/d>3), even at the largest $\varphi$ ($\approx 60\%$) achievable in the experiments, an uninterrupted particle flow is observed, which resembles that of an hourglass. This particularly small value of D/d at the transition to a practically uninterrupted flow is attributed to the low effective friction between the particles, achieved by the particle's functionalization and lubrication.

References in corpus (5)

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Cited by in corpus (11)

• Growth of clogs in parallel microchannels
• Transition from clogging to continuous flow in constricted particle suspensions
• Intermittent flow and transient congestions of soft spheres passing narrow orifices
• Role of liquid driving on the clogging of constricted particle suspensions
• Silo discharge of mixtures of soft and rigid grains
• Size-dependent particle migration and trapping in 3D microbubble streaming flows
• Optimizing the Throughput of Particulate Streams Subject to Blocking
• Contact Force Mediated Rapid Deposition of Colloidal Microspheres Flowing Over Microstructured Barriers
• Flow and clogging of capillary droplets
• Hopper flows of dense suspensions: a 2D microfluidic model system
• Squeezing multiple soft particles into a constriction: transition to clogging